


i shall not want

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Catholic Guilt, Demonic Possession, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Horror, Mildly Dubious Consent, Priests, Roman Catholicism, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18710392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: The demon comes to him at night.





	i shall not want

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote for [sanctify](https://genius.com/Years-and-years-sanctify-lyrics), which i took as literally as one can, i think.  
> the dubcon tag and the mild horror tag are mostly there because i’d rather be safe than sorry. the very nature of sex with a demon entails, uh, consent issues.  
> i’m not catholic but i did go to catholic school, for what it’s worth. my personal understanding of religion is quite removed from western christianity, but faith is faith, and i hope that does shine through. 
> 
> r, i love you. d, thank you for allowing me to do a 180 last minute!

—

THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL  
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD; I SHALL NOT WANT

—

 

The demon comes to him at night.

 _Father,_ it whispers, in the voice of an infant, in the voice of a lost brother, in the voice of someone in need — because it knows Joshua cannot resist a call for help. _Father, deliver me._

The first time it does not reveal its face. In the Californian air its slow murmurs melt into the sounds of the night, colorless echoes. _Father, wake up._

Joshua wakes up.

His back is sweaty, his cotton pyjama sticking to his skin. He can still hear the supplication ringing in his ear. A dream, he tells himself. Nothing but a fabrication of the mind. He lays back down. He closes his eyes.

 _Father,_ the voice whispers again.

Eyes closed, he extends his hand, waits for sleep to take him like a wave crashing on the shore.

 

+

 

It comes to him again, this time unveiled. In the darkness, an inescapable silhouette — still on his retina as he shuts his eyes closed like one locks a door in panic. He still cannot make out a face but there is a _presence_ in the middle of his room, standing, calling.

_Father, deliver me._

Joshua turns his back on it and sinks to his knees, hands joined in prayer, and his words of prayer reverberate into the emptiness.

 

+

 

The third night it appears just as dusk has settled on the city’s shoulders like a coat. It is clearer, a humanoid shape in the horizon, solidifying with every minute that passes. Joshua looks and then he looks away, worried seeing it is believing it and believing it is giving it too much power.

This time when it speaks it has its own voice, eerily _foreign_ and painstakingly intimate simultaneously.

 _Father,_ it says, _Do not avert your eyes._

And Joshua knows he is being tested. When it first showed itself he wondered for a second, if maybe that was an angel.

It is not an angel. Maybe it was, at some point in time Joshua’s human brain cannot even begin to comprehend, but today it is not an angel. What emanates from it is so powerfully dark it knocked the breath out of him when it first entered in contact with him, plucked him from his deepest sleep and shook him awake in terror.

Joshua is a man of God. The golden cross that rests against his chest is as much proof of faith as it is a talisman, and when the demon is in his house it burns.

 _Father,_ it calls again.

“Hallowed be Your name,” Joshua says between gritted teeth, “Your kingdom come.”

The windows rattle.

It disappears.

 

+

 

The man on the other side of the wooden panel sounds vaguely familiar. Joshua fiddles with his collar. It gets terribly hot inside the confessional, on some days.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” the stranger says. “It’s been, well,” he chuckles, “a lifetime since my last confession.”

Joshua doesn’t understand the joke.

“May God, who has enlightened every heart,” he starts reciting mechanically, “help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.”

He likes confession. He always has, ever since he was a child. It’s formulaic — comforting because it never changes. The nature of the sin varies, but not the absolution.

For the first time he finds himself at loss, on the wrong side of the screen. The air tastes acrid, thick like smoke.

Maybe he forgot to eat earlier.  

“Father,” the stranger says, “Do you ever have sinful thoughts?”

Joshua clears his throat. “We all do.”

He thinks back to gym class at West Adams Prep. Growing bodies and square shoulders and football fields. He thinks back to wanting, and not wanting to want.

“We all do, my child,” he says. Tone reassuring, but he doesn’t know who. “For we are human.”

Temptation is a path. There are other roads, although less traveled.

“That is quite presumptuous of you, Father,” the stranger laughs. It sounds like a silver spoon on a crystal Champagne flute.

“Presumptuous?” Joshua frowns.

He cannot see the man, but when he answers it isn’t hard to picture — a wide smile, perfect, disturbing.

“To assume that we are both human.”

Joshua gets up, runs outside, circles the ebony box. Opens the other door in one swift movement, _gotcha!_

The confessional is empty.

 

+

 

It visits his dreams.

He jerks awake drenched in sweat, and sometimes in tears. God has no answers for this torment. Joshua prays to Him daily, knees bruised, but he is alone against the monster in his room. In his slumber the demon has a face and a smell but when he comes to Joshua never remembers. All that remains is the unadulterated fear, fear in its essence, fear distilled to its barest element. _Something_ is with him.

God remains silent.

 

+

 

He senses it touching him on a Friday evening as he is finishing his next sermon. Pen in hand, he stills. There are fingers on his nape, aerial, barely-there. But they _are_ there, he knows it. It is a maternal touch, the jaws of the lioness around her cub's neck.

His blood turns to ice. Before at least oxygen acted as a barrier. Air between them like a wall, an absence of contact. It is harder to deny the reality of _touch._

Then a whisper, phantom lips brushing the shell of his ear. _Forgive me, Father._

Joshua’s pen drops to the floor. It falls in a dull _thump_ against the carpet.

The demon is gone. He’s alone in the room, he knows it just like he knew earlier that he wasn’t.

 

+

 

That Sunday, first row, he notices a new addition to their congregation. A young man around his age, long bleached hair in a ponytail, gaze piercing, statuesque in his beauty. It is nothing, to notice it, Joshua tells himself. If anything the newcomer reminds him of Raphaelite angels, a celebration of the Heavens.

At the end of mass he comes to Joshua.

“Thank you, Father,” he smiles softly. “What an inspiring sermon.”

He just moved here, he explains. He likes the church. He feels lucky.

God provides, Joshua nods. To those deserving.

 

+

 

His name is Jeonghan. He attends every Sunday, and sometimes in the middle of the week Joshua finds him at the pew.

The garden behind the church is too big for two lanky kids right out of Theology school to tend to alone, and the Vatican rarely shares its riches. In their decrepit building right in the middle of Koreatown, Joshua knows to count on his own hands before he counts on anyone else, the representatives of God included.

They put up a poster with _HELP NEEDED_ printed in bold red and Jeonghan shows up, sleeves rolled up, sunny grin eating up half his face as Joshua passes him a shovel. Under the sun, boots sunk into the dirt, it is thankless work. Jeonghan never complains. He hums to the tune of an old wartime song under his breath. Joshua loses track of time staring at the bulging vein rivulating down his exposed left forearm.

 

+

 

 _Father,_ the demon suspires, _do not avert your eyes._

 

+

 

They cohabitate, he supposes, the demon and him. They share the night. There is nothing he can do. He has cried and begged and he has cursed in anger.

_Have You abandoned me?_

The God Joshua felt once as certain as the river flows, that God is wordless — but then again He always was. It was never in words that Joshua found comfort, always in the soothing hand.

Still in his bed at night he asks, _Have You abandoned me?_

 

+

 

It is punishment, he concludes. The texts were wrong, it is enough to think the sin — one does not have to act on it. That is the only explanation he can come up with. He sinned in thoughts and he cannot be absolved. Now he has a devil perched on his shoulder, like a bird of prey. Talons digging into his flesh, never letting off.

Rosary in hand he repeats the prayer. _Ave Maria, Gratia plena, Dominus tecum._

What a pagan habit, he thinks absently later, staring at the ceiling. Chanting words like spells, in hope to be forgiven.

 

+

 

 _Father,_ the demon says, sugary-sweet, claws dragging gently down the front of Joshua’s clerical shirt.

Eyes screwed shut, knuckles white where he is gripping the armrests, Joshua does not bend.

 

+

 

He’s walking home when he passes the basketball court. He recognizes the blonde ponytail before anything else — Jeonghan is a whirlwind of colors, the muted blue of his shirt and the orange of the ball as he dribbles his way across the court. On the other side of the grid Joshua stops and stares.

Jeonghan must feel the eyes on his back because he drifts away from his friends right after scoring, jogs to Joshua, beaming. His t-shirt looks so soft to the touch.

“I was just passing by,” Joshua says. Always justifying himself.

“Did you see? Jeonghan chuckles, leaning against the metal fence.

“You’re pretty good,” Joshua nods, indulgent.

“High school kids,” Jeonghan explains, pointing at the group behind him. “They come to play every day after school. I figured, you know. There aren’t loads of adults around. I get worried sometimes.”

 _You’re a good Christian,_ Joshua wants to tell him. _You’re a good person._

It doesn’t make it out his throat, stuck there, like crushed glass.

“I’ll see you on Sunday,” he says instead. “I have to go.”

“Have a good evening, Father,” Jeonghan shakes his head, smiling, as he walks away backwards.

 

+

 

Joshua chose ministry early. He likes to say ministry chose him, but that’s wordplay — his ordination was a long journey he embarked on fully willing, and a decision he made himself, maybe more rational than faithful. As a small child in choir he remembers already thinking, _I like it here._ He has friends who got their PhDs because they never wanted to leave school and teaching ensured just that. He is the same, he thinks. He just happens to never want to leave church.

The cross that rests close to his heartbeat, he views it like men view their wedding rings. A promise, an obligation. He never takes it off.

 

+

 

When he was fourteen, he remembers, inside the confessional he felt free. God does not judge — only men do. In the moment of admission there are no men in the wooden box — only God’s hands and eyes on earth and a vessel of sin.

 _I love a boy,_ he had whispered. _I want him to kiss me._

The priest’s voice had been kind. God, in his forgiveness, was kinder.

 

+

 

_Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners._

 

+

 

Joshua opens his eyes.

The demon is a shapeless cloud, dark smoke. It is here and it is everywhere.

 _Father,_ it speaks.

“Show yourself to me,” Joshua says. “I do not fear you.”

 _Father,_ it is almost purring now, _lying is a sin._

“I do not fear you,” Joshua repeats, and his voice does not waver. “You are nothing in the face of the Lord.”

The demon laughs. It has no mouth, and it has no body, and yet it can laugh.

“Crux sacra sit mihi lux,” Joshua starts reciting, “Non Draco sit mihi dux.”

 _Archaic rituals,_ the demon hisses, _cannot harm me._

“Vade retro, Satana,” Joshua continues, pointedly ignoring it, “Numquam suade mihi vana.”

 _Oh, but I can,_ the demon says, delighted. _I can._

 

+

 

Let the Holy Cross be my light

Let not the dragon be my guide

Step back, Satan

You cannot tempt me with vain things

 

+

 

Joshua blinks. The demon wears the face of a man.

Long blond hair. Warm brown eyes.

Joshua screams.

 

+

 

“Father,” Jeonghan says.

 

+

 

“This is a trick,” Joshua says. “This is a test.”

Not-Jeonghan tilts his head to the side. “Who do you think is testing you? Your God? For that he would have to care.”

“My God cares,” Joshua insists.

“Your God thinks of you as often as you think of the cockroaches that live in your basement,” the creature scoffs.

 _This is a test,_ Joshua repeats for himself.

“You’re doing an awful job at convincing me you’re him, you know,” he chooses to say instead, reorienting the dialogue. “He would never taunt me. He only ever tortures me unknowingly. He’s a good man.”

“Is he, now?” Not-Jeonghan smirks. “Maybe I’m just that good at make-believe, Father.”

_This is a test, this is a test._

 

+

 

When it comes now it always pretends to be Jeonghan. Joshua cannot meet his eyes in church anymore, which is a pity considering Jeonghan always sits up front, directly in his line of sight.

At night the demon whispers in his voice, _Father, Father._ It does not have to haunt Joshua’s nightmare anymore. Joshua dreams it anyway.

 

+

 

Quiet company, the devil is on his shoulder — metaphorical and not. They are roommates, begrudgingly, he supposes. They share spaces. The demon wants to eat all of him, inhabit him completely. Joshua will never let it have that, and so they have to live together.

Maybe, he thinks at his lowest hour, it was always there, deep within. Maybe he cannot banish it because he has been sending it _wherever the hell it came from,_ and _wherever the hell it came from_ was inside Joshua all along.

 

+

 

“You’re tired,” the demon says. “Let me take care of you.”

 

+

 

The touch, always, is ghostly. Tendrils of smoke, immaterial evil. It is gentle when it touches him, it is careful. Cirrus curling around Joshua’s wrist, slowly, almost tender.

 

+

 

He _is_ tired. He _is_ lonely. He _is,_ most certainly, going insane.

 

+

 

He takes a pencil, draws a diagram. There are three possibilities.

One — he is going mad, and the demon is a figment of his imagination. He has been talking to walls. He has been terrified of nothing.

Two — the demon is a trial, one more occasion to prove himself. Like the snake in the Garden of Eden, it is traitorous, seductive. The seed of doubt it has planted inside Joshua’s lungs, the branches growing between his ribs, he cannot let them take him.

Three — the demon is telling the truth. God does not smile upon His children. God is terrible and merciless and the only entity that has ever cared enough to stop and _speak_ to Joshua is the one he’s been calling _devil._

 

+

 

He wakes up pinned to his bed. There is an unspeakable weight on his chest, cataclysmic. _My cross,_ he thinks, delirious.

Jeonghan is so close, above him, that their noses are touching, Jeonghan’s hair framing both their faces like curtains hiding them from the world.

“Joshua,” he says.

Not _Father,_ but Joshua.

His hands are on either side of Joshua’s head on the mattress. He’s not holding him. Something _else_ is, though, because Joshua still cannot move, invisibly shackled.

“Do not avert your eyes,” Jeonghan pleads.

 

+

 

Kissing, sharing breath, it should not feel like fire. It should not and yet it does, it burns like Joshua supposes hell will, all-consuming, ablaze. Not a single centimeter of skin not alight. He’s a forest and someone tossed a match in the wild weeds, not carelessness but arson.

Panting, he tries raising a hand. The filament of black smoke holding him down lets him go easily. He threads his fingers through Jeonghan’s silky hair, kisses him again.

Such a catastrophic transgression, and it comes as natural as breathing.

 

+

 

Body arching, divested of clothes, he does not know where to begin to _feel._ Two human-like hands on him and thrice as many columns of smoke, and then more. Surrounded, guarded, overexposed somehow and _covered,_ the way he once let Christ in him he also lets the devil. Through the mouth, first, just like communion.

He looks up, and once again Jeonghan reminds him of the angels, the way they should always be portrayed. Beautiful and terrible, uncanny. The tendrils of darkness behind him like a monstrous shadow, Joshua thinks, could just as well be wings.

 

+

 

“Errare humanum est,” Jeonghan whispers, lips cold, into the hollow of Joshua’s throat, “sed perseverare diabolicum.”

 

+

 

And if to err is human but to persist in error is diabolical, then what is to become of him?

 

+

 

“Why?” Joshua asks; chest heaving, skin marred with bruises, a monster in his bed.

“Well,” Jeonghan says, and then he pauses, as if he needs a second to think about it — as if it never occurred to him before, to need a reason why. “I was hungry.”

 

+

 

He’s putting on his tab collar, focused, eyes on his own reflection. He doesn’t have to look to know Jeonghan is behind him, sitting on the windowsill, legs swinging.

 

+

 

“Perseverare diabolicum,” Joshua says, kneeling, Jeonghan’s hand on the crown of his head.

Jeonghan smiles his gentlest smile and breathes out, _Then so be it._

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is the most open-to-interpretation thing i’ve ever written, and while i have my own set vision of what happens and who’s what (ha!), i’d be super interested in knowing what _you_ guys took from it!  
> thank you for reading <3  
> as always you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yifanapologist)!


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